Various vibratory conveyors of assorted designs have been employed in diverse industry segments through the years. Such vibratory conveyors have been used on a wide range of applications including mining, and more recently in various food handling applications. Vibratory conveyors, and more specifically, excited frame conveyors have been utilized for decades. Such vibratory conveyors have been employed to handle fragile food products such as potato chips, french fries and other coated food products in a manner which prevents damage to the product, or further prevents seasonings, and the like from becoming dislodged from the product as the product is moved between processing stations.
Excited frame conveyor designs have evolved through the years. Generally speaking, however, excited frame conveyors have included a longitudinally extending conveyor bed which has been used to transport product along a linear path of travel between adjacent work stations. In some applications, mechanical gates have been incorporated into the conveying beds of such exciting frame conveyors in order to allow a portion of a product stream to be diverted from the conveyor bed for various downstream purposes. While the mechanical gate assemblies employed on the aforementioned conveyors have operated with various degrees of success, shortcomings have long been recognized with such arrangements. Chief among the problems associated with such mechanical gates is the propensity for these assemblies to collect or otherwise be coated with various food products, and other debris, that might be introduced or mixed with the product stream. Besides the obvious problems associated with debris, and other food coating interfering with the mechanical operation of such gates, that is, the debris, often has a tendency to slow the operation of such gate assemblies, this debris also presents a sanitation problem. Additionally it is often difficult to clean such mechanical devices if the excited frame conveyor has been utilized to transmit a product that has constituent elements that might strongly adhere to the various surfaces of the mechanical gate arrangement. Of course difficulties in cleaning such devices inevitably leads to delays in converting various product lines so that they may be utilized with alternative food products as might be the case in a modern packaging plant.
A conveyor assembly which addresses these and other shortcomings in the prior art teachings and practices is the subject matter of the present application.